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The Blockchain Revealed: How InfoSec Can Benefit from the Protocol

By Marcos Colón

| December 13, 2018

Ask anyone on the street what blockchain is and they’ll likely associate the term to cryptocurrency. Not that it’s incorrect, but it’s also not what it’s all about. Even many seasoned security practitioners may have limited knowledge of the technology, and most don’t know where to begin when it comes understanding how it impacts their day-to-day roles.

Needless to say, blockchain is here and more and more organizations are tapping into its benefits from a security standpoint. If they’re not, they could be missing out on a big opportunity, says Debbie Hoffman, CEO and founder of Symmetry Blockchain Advisors, a cryptocurrency blockchain advisory firm.

“The technology can be used for both payment purposes and for ledger or storage purposes,” Hoffman told InfoSec Insider during a video interview shot at the CSA Congress event in Orlando, Florida. “The information that we put on these ledgers can’t be erased, so it’s immutable. It’s stored in a decentralized fashion…you can have both payment currency and information stored on that ledger, and [when it comes to information security] one of the very intriguing things about this protocol, because of the distributed nature of the ledger, is that it’s more difficult to hack into.”

Given that the major characteristics of the blockchain protocols are supply chain, identity and record keeping, organizations that rely on those same sets can apply the technology to the business that’s being done, Hoffman adds. This means that security practitioners in the supply chain, healthcare, or financial services industries can definitely benefit from blockchain.

InfoSec Insider catches up with Hoffman who clarifies what blockchain means to security leaders today, and any privacy implications they should be aware of.

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